About Heschel

When The Abraham Joshua Heschel School was founded in 1983, a new model of Jewish day school was created. Named after one of the great Jewish leaders, teachers, and activists of the twentieth century, The Heschel School opened with a commitment to creating a pluralistic Jewish community dedicated to the values that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: intellectual exploration, respect, integrity, love of the Jewish people and tradition, and a commitment to social justice.

Admissions

Welcome to The Abraham Joshua Heschel School. We are a unique pluralistic Jewish day school, emphasizing academic excellence as well as awareness of social and communal responsibility through an offering of a superb integrated curriculum of general and Judaic studies.

Parents' Association

The PA is comprised of all parents in the school, including Early Childhood, Lower School, Middle School, and High School. We foster communication between the parent body and the administration, faculty, and staff. Throughout the year, we engage families by creating and producing community-building and educational programs.Visit the Parent PortalMy BackPackImportant DatesParent Manual

Support Heschel

There is no other school in New York City quite like Heschel. Across our curriculum, we foster academic excellence, as well as a love of learning and exploration and an emphasis on critical thinking. Your partnership is invaluable and we appreciate all the ways that you work with us to strengthen our school and our community.

Message from the Head of School

Welcome to The Abraham Joshua Heschel School. It is my privilege to introduce you to our unique school community named after one of the great Jewish leaders, teachers, and activists of the twentieth century.

When you walk through our doors, you enter a school where Jewish pluralism and academic excellence thrive within a community of students and faculty dedicated to the values that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: intellectual exploration, respect, integrity, love of the Jewish people and tradition, and a commitment to social justice.

From Nursery through Twelfth Grade, these values drive our commitment to our students’ intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development. Across our curriculum, drawing on traditional texts and new technologies, we foster spirited engagement, critical thinking, and a love of learning. From our Early Childhood division through our High School, Heschel teachers strive to nurture and support the diverse talents of each student.

All of us at The Heschel School aspire to cultivate the authentic Jewish lives of our students. We teach them to understand, analyze and appreciate a range of Jewish practices and beliefs. We instill a commitment to hesed (deeds of kindness) and tzedek (the pursuit of justice) as expressions of our religious imperative to unite people through shared humanity and mutual respect. Heschel students develop meaningful and lasting relationships with the language, culture, history, and people of the State of Israel so that a connection to Israel figures centrally in their Jewish identities. And we encourage our students to embody Jewish traditions in the way they live their lives as citizens of a diverse world community.

I hope that this website will introduce you to some of the extraordinary elements of our school community. But, even more importantly, I hope that it will encourage you to come meet me in person. Come walk through our doors yourself and experience the culture, academics, and philosophy that are the hallmarks of a Heschel education.